


Last Words of A Shooting Star

by yalejosie



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26854111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yalejosie/pseuds/yalejosie
Summary: There was a ghost in the machine, who could it be?---In which Nastya comes to the decision to go Out
Comments: 22
Kudos: 23





	Last Words of A Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song of the same name by the incomparable Mitski
> 
> Soooo this was stewing and started and stopped for a good four days. And then I stayed up and got it done. I had so many plans for this piece, since it is my debut not just for this fandom but this year. But I decided to listen to my heart instead and just put down something honest. I hope whoever is reading this likes it. Sorry for being so angsty on fic 1 lmao

There was a ghost in the machine, and it could only be one person. 

Nastya walked around the Aurora, gently dragging her fingers against the wall. She had noticed that less and less of Aurora's original parts were still remaining, Cyberian metal replaced by whatever the Mechanisms could get their hands on. Today, though, it seemed particularly obvious. Obvious that so little of the spaceship Nastya had fallen in love with still remained. It made Nastya's heart ache, as she walked around the halls of the ship that had loved her so well for so long.

\---

Ivy had once told Nastya that long ago, on a long forgotten planet, researchers had run a thought experiment on immortality. They proposed that even if a person was immortal, that their brain would be unable to remember anything with great clarity before their last one hundred years. Their brain would be unable to comprehend more information than that. Ivy said this with great ecstasy, as she detailed how she had retrieved the study and the possible implications of it. At the time, Nastya had filed it away, but now she turned it over in her head. 

Aurora was a machine, but still, how much could she truly remember? Did Aurora remember Nastya as she was when she had first arrived, veins flowing newly cold with quicksilver? Did Aurora remember Nastya, repairing her and singing with her, loving her? Or did Aurora only remember Nastya, the ghost?

\---

Nastya stared at the common room from the hallway. Nowadays, she never joined whatever the crew was getting up to. Jonny, Ashes, and Marius were playing some convoluted card game. Somehow, they were all cheating. The others sat in pairs, talking or brainstorming new ideas for assorted projects. 

They were all so full of life. Watching them made her heart feel like ice cold hands plunged into boiling hot water. None of them noticed she was even gone. But it didn't matter. 

Nastya left, and continued wandering her love. She no longer had a place among them. Being there felt like reliving a memory from long ago, not making a new one. 

\---

When Nastya had been having trouble falling asleep once, Aurora had read her a bedtime story. 

_ There is a ghost in the machine. Who could it be? _

Now, Nastya pondered that question as she sat in the engine room. There was a ghost in the machine, and who could it be?

Could it be Nastya, sitting alone? Could it be Nastya, feeling herself lose her love? Could it be Nastya, wishing that things could go back to the way they were?

Yes, yes it was. It was Nastya, feeling terribly lonely and not knowing a way to get rid of the feeling. It was Nastya, losing Aurora slowly, turning into a ship she could barely recognize. It was Nastya, feeling like a ghost. 

\---

Nastya sat in the engine room. Where else did she have to go? She was a creature of habit, above all else. In the past, if Nastya wasn't repairing Aurora or hanging out with the crew, she was down here listening to her love sing. But nowadays, Nastya neither fixed Aurora or interacted with her crewmates. Nor did Aurora make any noises besides the disant roar of her engines. No, Nastya just sat there, and she mourned.

When you're immortal, you're supposed to be exempt from change. Things live, fight, cry, and die, and you are still there. Yet, things were changing. Aurora was changing, the crew was changing. Even though their mechanisms healed their bodies, their experiences had molded them into new people. Nastya was not exempt from this. She had also been changed beyond recognition, like an old clay pot re-fired in a kiln. But Nastya refused to accept it. She saw herself as nothing but an anachronism, like an old wind up clock. And it was this belief that destroyed herself. 

\---

When Nastya found the last original piece of the Aurora, she knew she'd had enough.

Nastya had been floating outside the Aurora, near the O'Neill Ring. It was bitterly cold in space, and she would've died many times over if she didn't have a rebreather on. But it was peaceful out there, floating among the stars. Nastya felt like she was in good company, among the dying lights of long dead stars. She wasn't the only ghost out there.

While floating one day, Nastya sensed something deeply familiar. She floated toward the source of that feeling. It felt like coming home. It led her to the last original piece of the Aurora. Her love's original metal and serial number, marred under numerous scars but still there. Nastya gently pried the piece, and hugged it tightly. She saw her tears float around her face, circling around her like miniature moons caught in her melancholy orbit. Nastya knew that it was time to go.

\---

The Mechanisms didn't like to talk about their deaths. For as much as they all wanted to deny it, they would all die someday. Whether that would be before or at the heat death of the universe was as much a mystery to her as anyone else. Still though, it would happen eventually. All things must come to an end. However, Nastya couldn't wait until the heat death of the universe for her release. She knew it was her time. She needed to go Out. 

\---

Nastya cleaned her room ten times over. She polished the engine room one last time. Nastya had been teaching Ashes all that they needed to know about how to take care of the Aurora, just in case something happened to her. They would do splendidly, but Nastya still left an instructions book behind. The crew barely noticed all of Nastya's preparations. They were all so wrapped up in their own minds, they could barely spare a moment for their forgotten engineer. Still, it hurt Nastya to know that it was pointless to say goodbye. It hurt to know she wouldn't be missed.

\---

As Nastya walked to the airlock, trusty Cyberian coat billowing behind her and the last piece of her love in hand, she reflected. Her life had been long. It had been full of so much love, and even more pain. She was sad it had to end this way, but it seemed fitting. A quiet death for the quiet engineer. No one would claim her as she died, and no one would miss her. For she belonged nowhere anymore, and besides... 

Who would want to keep a ghost?

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You are by no means obligated to leave a comment but please know if you do I will cry happy tears. 
> 
> Also, here's a lil heart for making it this far <3  
> Tysm for reading, it means a lot


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